My Life As A Gay Man: Reflections on Threesomes

Partners welcome them now and again to revitalize a sexual relationship that’s becoming mundane, but many times, threesomes aren’t the equal deals in bed that gay fantasies or Logo have portrayed them to be.

I’ve had my share of them over the years and learned that while men and combinations thereof are as varied as numbers on a scratch-off lottery card, some common threads still apply.

You have the spontaneous threesomes that take place in some sex club/bath house venue or backroom. Here, two guys are screwing around and, all of a sudden, enters Mr. Number Three. Sometimes the original pair are so into it, New Guy tries butting in before realizing it just ain’t gonna happen. But just as often, the twosome are total strangers who just started getting it on 79 seconds before, and having a third guy to go down on the two of them while they’re warming up in the kissing department just adds to the fun.

Then there are the threesomes with partners and fuck buddies. These can be spur of the moment, too, like when a pair of hot clonish men, clinging onto one another all night at the local levi/leather bar, suddenly zero in on what would make them both happy, standing against the wall. But, more often, liaisons with pairs who know one another’s bodies and hot buttons like two well-oiled machines tend to be prearranged, often on the web, or prescreened as happens when the twosome is at a vacation hotspot or on some RSVP cruise. Such adventures give them an opportunity to size up, cock tease, and come on to Mr. Possibility. (Checking out HIV statuses doesn’t hurt either, particularly when the twosome are poz – or neg – boys.) With fuck buddies, where their mutuality is based largely on good sex, it’s less of an issue, but partners are wise to fuck around off local soil so there’s less likelihood of Mr. New Guy becoming a threat to their relationship.

That’s because invariably there’s a subtle or not so subtle stronger connection between New Guy and one of the pair sexually and, yes, even emotionally, which may not end with the used condom on the floor.

So what combinations work the best? Two hairy guys into a smooth one or vice versa as a change of pace (like having pistachio ice cream instead of the usual vanilla, chocolate and strawberry); a top, a versatile top who’s really a closet bottom, a total bottom who sometimes just lays there, no foreplay, no kissing, just ass up, and a “versatile,” or, mommy, hold me back, three versatiles. On the other hand, three lids or three pots just don’t make for exciting three-way romps.(That’s why pre-screening is a must.)

Finally, we have the ultimate in ménage a trios: the polyamorous threesomes taken to the loving extreme.

I was at 2606, the leather bar in Tampa one weekend, when I started chatting with a hot furry leather man about life. During our conversation, he mentioned that he and his partner (who preferred watching “CSI Miami” on Saturday night to the comings and the goings of the Tampa leather scene) were recent San Francisco transplants. In S.F., Hot Man was an attorney whose clientele included three way relationships, married marrieds with another man or woman in the picture, or just three gay boys or girls living together. But these were not just threesomes built on sex, not when property and 401K’s and kids and healthcare proxies and estates came into the picture.

But I think the most bizarre threesome I’ve personally encountered involved some guys from St Pete’s, Florida, whom I met on line. Kyle and Tim, two hot, seasoned men, said they were fuck buddies looking for a playmate and, on a long weekend in St Pete’s, my first visit there, we played the afternoon away at my guest house room in fuck/suck ecstasy. As I was showering up, Tim asked if I’d like to go to dinner, to wit he called Sal, his lover – yes, his lover – on the cell to join us. So there we were, the odd quartet at an-all-you-can-eat Chinese restaurant, Tim, Kyle, Tim’s fuck buddy, me who had just finished fucking around with the two of them, and Sal, Tim’s lover, who liked me, really liked me, and knew exactly what the three of us had been doing all afternoon.

Later, Tim who told me that he and Kyle had been fuck buddies, just fuck buddies, since college, also confided that he had a problem in making his romantic relationships stick. Sal was his third lover in as many years and he was wondering what he was doing wrong.

Duh?

Guess what Tim does for a living? Yep, he’s a psychologist. And when Sal, whom Tim helped put through nursing school, suddenly left him one day for a younger and richer playmate, Tim was beside himself on how Sal could have betrayed their polyamorous (Tim + Kyle + Sal) commitment.